Released in 1987 or 1988, this is one of Yamaha’s Tone Bank keyboards. It’s a two-operator preset FM synth with a couple of voice modifiers, the expected auto-accompaniment, and some really poor drums. Master volume, accompaniment volume and auto accompaniment select are handled by physical sliders on the front panel. The only I/O port is a headphone jack.

To change voices you need to use a dedicated keypad type the number in. There is no Up/Down button for stepping through the programs. On the positive side, there IS a large display which shows the currently selected voice. There are buttons for sustain and vibrato, as well as portamento, which seems like it would be cool but has a fixed glide rate that’s disappointingly long. Good for sound effects, not so much for music.

The sounds are good, particularly in light of the crappy drums. Since it IS an FM keyboard, things like brass, organs, and bells are quite serviceable, while more natural sounds like the various guitars, piano, and woodwinds are a little lacking. The short keyboard is a definite disadvantage with some of the patches, particularly the basses.

Background video description:

Again I am comitting some musical malpractice to a well known Classic. This time the victim is Kiss from 1986.

I am not really sure what to call the person who sang it as he had the habit of frequent stage name changes. But as far as I know he was called Prince when he recorded this song.

All sounds, instruments (except the vocals) and FX processing used in the music featured in this clip are made only with the Pa900. (written and performed by Marco Parisi).
Korg debuts the new High Performance Arranger in the acclaimed PA-Series, the Pa900. The Pa900 has plenty of new sounds (featuring Defined Nuance Control for extra realism) which will impress any audience, as well as an enormous range of styles covering music genres from all over the world. Combine this with powerful functionality, an intuitive user interface and rich, powerful sound and you have an Arranger for the most demanding performer.

CasioTron Beats re-creates the rhythm patterns found on the vintage home keyboards of the 70’s and 80’s. These popular keyboards were analogue and have now become collectors items because of their warm sound.
This particular version takes the drum sounds from the then popular Casiotone MT-70 which although was more modern than the earlier models, it is still analogue as you will be able to tell from the sound.
Remember those bossa-nova and samba beats? Well here they are!

The rarest manufactured instrument – the extinct and impossible to find Birotron playing worn out mixed tapes of string section, brass, violas, choir, and flutes across the keyboard.

The Birotron (pronounced By-ro-tron) is a tape replay keyboard conceived by Dave Biro of Yalesville, Connecticut, USA, and funded by Rick Wakeman of the progressive-rock group Yes, and Campbell Soup Company-Pepperidge Farm Foods in the mid-late 1970s. A Mellotron-like instrument in the prototype stage, and intended for mass production – it was featured on a hit single and used on several albums and tours. It appeared in advertisements and received press in several newspapers as the next ‘latest and greatest’ keyboard instrument. It also received over 1000 advance orders from many prominent musicians worldwide including members of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Despite this success, it is now generally considered the world’s rarest keyboard instrument in the genres of pop/rock music. It also retains the highest selling price for any Mellotron related keyboard, and since its inception, has been one of the most difficult to find, seldom seen, and least recorded instruments in the entire world.“The musician is Chris Dale who very kindly let me do the video. So what did this instrument sound like with a decent set of unworn tapes???? That is a mystery…..Sadly we may never know.”

Most of my small keyboards are from Casio. But I do have a Collection of small Yamaha keyboards too. Here I use some of them to play the Classic Kraftwerk song “Computer Love”.

You might notice that on the PC-100 keyboard the notes doesn’t seem to match the keys I am playing. The reason is that I had to use the transpose knob to be able to get the notes as high as I wanted them. So on this particular keyboard I am playing in another key than on the others.

A few people have asked for more DW-8000 videos, so here you go. It’s just a quick, live improvisation with a nice DW-8000 resonant pad with slow LFO detuning, the standard DX bass, and a LinnDrum pattern.

Travel-ready, affordable, and outfitted with top-level Roland sounds, the V-Combo VR-09 is the ideal all-in-one solution for performing keyboard players. Dedicated piano, organ, and synth sound engines—organized in three intuitive blocks on the front panel—provide all the essential tones you need, right under your fingertips. The powerful real-time controls give you maximum expression on stage, with nine sliders for tone shaping and a large array of knobs and buttons for tweaking the seven simultaneous effects and various parameters. Other great features include an onboard looper, a drum section stocked with a library of rhythms for practice and jamming, and more. With its versatile sound selection, inspiring operation, and smart user interface, the V-Combo VR-09 is a dream come true for gigging musicians.

Professional keyboard with instant-access operation for performing musicians

Back in August 2007, Keyboard got a look at Page McConnell’s onstage rig. See and hear his array of vintage and analog gear.

Page McConnell is an American multi-instrumentalist most noted for his work as a songwriter and keyboardist with the American rock band Phish. In addition to being a member of Phish since 1985, McConnell has had several other musical liaisons during his career, including a trio named Vida Blue. He released his first solo album, featuring original compositions, in 2007.